There's never been an order to tall for me. Can't be - I've already stood as tall as anyone in the Wastes can.

Too deep, though... that's another tale.

I pulled the heart of Mainframe up out of the darkness, and mapped the old tunnels under the Empire City. So when the Provisional Republic wanted someone to go under the mountain in the high country, I was their first call. They'd sent their own up into the mountains and none came back. But they weren't me, and they weren't my crew. Crow and Sparrow and the Wellmark Twins, before Merlin joined, before we met up with Nau Shan Shan. Had Mouse and Khan and Six and Pale-as-Winter and Big Ava with us too. Big crew for a big job. Nothing we couldn't handle, nothing we couldn't outfight or outsmart. So up we went.

Even for the Wastes, it was empty. Like walking across the roof of the world. Beautiful and lonely, forlorn. The mountain itself was something else. I've sorted through bones of dead cities, stared down raiders, crossed swords with a dozen would be warlords from here to anywhere you'd care to name, and strolled where angels would fear to tread. So when I tell you that black hole cut into the heart of that mountain made even me think twice, well.

A few hairs standing on the back of my neck wasn't going to stop me though. Sparrow got it stronger though - couldn't even stand to look at it. Left her up top to watch our backs. Big Ava almost scrammed, but she owed Crow big, so she stuck. So down we went, into the heart of the mountain.

Down into somethings hunting grounds.

They let us get in deep, right down into the big caverns, the crypts they'd made so they could rise back out of them after the end like a phoenix. Miles and miles, filled with everything you could dream of, enough to conquer the world or buy paradise. All of it down there in the darkness.

While we were standing there dreaming, they hit us. Hard shadows, right up out of the darkness, there and gone. Moved like they could see in the dark. Guns and knives and burning red light. Pale-as-Winter in the first clash. They had us cornered, good as dead. Then Pale-as-Winter got back up, with death at his shoulder. Only reason we survived that first rush. Cut our way back to the maze that had lead us down. No idea how Pale-as-Winter made it there, but he was dead on his feet when we did, held together by hate and rage, til he had to stop, and that time he didn't get up. Lost Mouse in the confusion, like he'd never even been. Then it was rats in the tunnels, dead ends and ambushes. Never got a good look at the shadows. The pale ones swarmed us, knives and teeth and no fear of death. The dark ones came in with then, nightmares in metal and glass. Down to my last round and bad language at the end, when they got a hold of Khan and he decided to bring down a thousand tons of stone rather than let them take him off to whatever hell they'd crawled out of.

Don't know how long we wandered around down there afterwards. Don't know how much of what I saw was real, or just exhaustion and starvation and madness. But there's no maze I can't find my way out of, no prison that's going to hold me in. Found a way back up when the others decided to lay down and die, and then I turned my back on the sky and came back down again, this time leaving a trail behind me so I could lead them back out. All we found of Sparrow was the cold ashes of a fire and scraps of food in the watch post we'd left her at. No signs of a struggle, no tracks leading away. Like she'd turned into her namesake and been swallowed up by the big sky.

We staggered back down out of the highlands and told the Provisionals they could keep their damn mountain. They weren't much interested in paying up, but after introducing them to Buttercup and giving them the binders and maps I'd hauled out even as I'd left friends and part of my soul down there, they did the right thing.

Big Ava went her way, never wanted to see us again after that. Couldn't blame her.

Six stuck with us for a while longer. Never was the same. Got himself killed over a damn card game in the Neon City.

The Wellmark Twins, Sam and Alex, came through okay. We split up over the winter when work was scarce, and they got a gig with a caravan master. A godly man, so Crow and I wish them well, planned to meet up out West.

None of us who made it talked about it much. But I've seen it in their eyes too. Remembering that black pit, and wondering what's down at the bottom of it. We barely scratched the surface. Might be our salvation is down there. Might be our doom.

Mouse would know. And there isn't a day I don't pity the poor bastard for it.